Congress at Work: ‘$1 Billion an Hour’

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has come up with a vivid new way to express his contention that the nation is spending way too much money it doesn’t have. McConnell includes the tweaks in his opening remarks on the Senate floor on the 51st day that President Obama has been in office. “In just 50 days, Congress has voted to spend about $1.2 trillion between the Stimulus and the Omnibus,” McConnell says. “To put that in perspective, that’s about $24 billion a day, or about $1 billion an hour-most of it borrowed. There’s simply no question: government spending has spun out of control.”The math: 50 days times 24 hours equals 1,200 hours. 1,200 times 1 billion equals 1.2 trillion (a thousand billions is a trillion).

Even as he proposes a huge increase in the reach of government, the president continued to try to show his concern about spending by making an announcement today about earmark reform.